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Newsdepth - Buckeye Regional Robotics Competition
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Gas prices reached an all time high this week. AAA says the national average for a gallon of regular unleaded hit $3.28 on Monday. That's sixty-three cents higher than a year ago; and drivers were cringing back then! It's not just gasoline, though--the cost of diesel is up even more, and that's got independent truckers upset. It used to be, you could make a good living driving a truck. But those high fuel costs are taking a toll. Ed Lavandera tells us about truckers who are fed up over the cost of filling up. And on Monday morning in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania - horns were honking as more than 100 truckers rallied to send a message to state lawmakers - cut fuel taxes! In Pennsylvania, the tax is about thirty-eight cents a gallon for diesel and thirty-cents for gasoline. Truckers say they need help to keep things moving, and lawmakers say the tax is needed to repair roads.

Do you like roller coasters? The tilt-a-whirl? You may think the struggling economy doesn't affect you very much, but what if mom and dad decide to cut out your Six Flags or Cedar Point trip this summer? Brooke Anderson tells us how the poor economy might hurt business at our country's theme parks. Theme park insiders, however, reject that idea, thinking that families might cut out long vacations in favor of day trips to local parks.

One of the goals of the auto industry is to come up with cars that don't require as much gasoline - if any at all. About 1100 people are on a waiting list for a cool car. A company called Aptera in California developed the all-electric two-seater. It reaches speeds of eighty-five miles an hour, and will sell for about $30,000. It can also beat traffic; since it has three wheels, it's considered a motorcycle. That means drivers can use carpool lanes. The first Aptera cars should be completed by next November.

Have you heard about jobs being sent overseas? Some say it's cheaper to do business in places such as China and India, especially when America's economy is just limping along. Many factories are closing their doors and letting employees go. Jim Acosta tells us about struggling factory workers right here in Ohio, at the Johnson Rubber Company in Middlefield. Company officials say they simply couldn't keep up with rising energy and healthcare costs, making it impossible to compete with cheap labor overseas.

Can you imagine lying in bed for eighty five days straight? Dominic Prinzo did just that at the Cleveland Clinic - all in the name of science. The twenty-nine-year-old took part in a NASA study that hopes to find if certain kinds of exercise can improve bone density and help astronauts on long space flights. Besides blogging and watching movies, Dominic walked on a vertical treadmill three miles a day, five days a week, in a special harness. Dominic sat up and walked for the first time on Monday.

Seventy-five years of history were celebrated last weekend in Cincinnati at Union Terminal. The landmark was one of the last grand train stations built in the United States. One of the main events was the opening of a time capsule from 1958, filled with newspapers and photographs.

More than one thousand high school students on forty-six teams from eight states got together recently in Cleveland for the FIRST Buckeye Regional Robotics Competition. What did these numbers add up to? Proof that the fields of math, science and engineering can look forward to some highly motivated college graduates in a few years.

The 2008 Beijing Olympic Games are months away, but the official Olympic flame arrived in Beijing on Monday. The torch was lit and will now travel to over 20 different countries, spanning 85,000 miles and five continents. The first torch relay began in Berlin in 1936; but can be traced to the ancient Olympian Games in Greece over 2700 years ago.
April 3, 2008